~ Reliving Childhood One Week at a Time

Tag Archives: Donald Duck

For yet another package film, this one didn’t annoy me nearly as much as many of the previous ones.

The first segment was entitled “Once Upon a Wintertime” and it a young boy and girl going ice skating, joined by a pair of rabbits. They both enjoy themselves until the males each do something to anger the females who tromp off onto thin ice from which they need rescuing. Although the guys try to save the day, they both end up failing and are ultimately all saved by the horses that drove their sleigh and a pair of birds. While still an entirely music driven piece, the clear plot of this one including conflict made it quite a nice piece.

The second segment, Bumble Boogie was an upbeat reimagining of “Flight of the Bumble Bee”. I liked the music, but as was common with many of the segments from this era, it involved a trippy wonderland with piano key flowers, snakes, and birds butterflies.

The Legend of Johnny Appleseed was the third segment. I could have sworn that I’d seen this as a child, but upon watching it, it didn’t seem familiar at all. Perhaps I just saw another version. Whatever it was, this one didn’t impress me. Johnny runs around planting seeds, decides to “go west” to plant some more (but didn’t get far apparently) because a funny looking angel told him so, makes friends with animals and dies. Uh… k.

The fourth segment is that of “Little Toot”. This one I do remember seeing as a kid. It’s about a young tugboat who tries his hardest but ends up messing up everything he does. So after causing a large ship to run aground, he gets arrested by the boat police and taken out to sea where he discovers a large ship he saves. Apparently that taught him everything he needed to know.

This segment was quite scary as a kid. The police boats were pretty stern looking and the navigation buoys were downright scary.

Fifth was a segment on Trees. As with the rest of the musical segments with no plots, this one bored me. I think I fell asleep for a bit of it. The animation was pretty, but the harmonies are sleep inducing.

The next piece, “Blame it on the Samba” was a wake up though. It seemed like an excuse to bring back the aracuan bird. Jose and Donald were feeling blue (and literally were) so the aracuan makes them do some Samba which revives their spirits. And sends them into another trippy world. As with Bumblebee Boogie, fun music, but the not enough to keep interest otherwise.

The final segment was Pecos Bill which was about a child raised by coyotes who grew up to be the best cowboy evar. This was easily my favorite segment due to the humor in the piece: bringing rain from California to make the Gulf of Mexica, lighting a cigarette with a bolt of lightning, shooting out the stars until there was only one left (hence the Lone Star state), knocking out gold teeth of bandits (which is why there’s gold in them thar hills).

Ultimately he meets a cowgirl, wrangling a giant catfish. The two get married, but her wedding gift was a ride on his horse. Her bustle ends up bouncing her to the moon which got Pecos howling and is why coyotes howl at the moon.

Fun and Fancy Free is yet another package film (thanks WWII) produced by the Walt Disney Company. It contains a short about a circus bear running away to the wild and a Mickey Mouse version of Jack and the Beanstalk. How are these related? They’re not. Both were originally developed as full features, but due to the war and budgets and whatnot they got shortened and thrown together.

SO! Jiminy Cricket apparently breaks into a house (again) where Cleo happens to be living. However, it is not Gepetto’s house. We’re in America, evidently. Jiminy starts talking to a doll and a stuffed bear after singing a little ditty. What?

Somehow this turns into the story of Bongo the circus bear in a short narrated by Dinah Shore. (She also sang in Make Mine Music) Bear runs away, can’t make it in the wild, meets a cute girl.

Now, I’m not up to par on my bear knowledge….but abusive relationship says what? Given, the song is cutesy and kind of catchy, but WHAT?! I’m with Jon on this one: gonna keep it away from the kiddos.

Fun Fact: Because Bongo was a circus bear, it was a passing thought to have it using the same circus set up and supporting cast (elephants, etc.) as Dumbo.

So after these bears literally beat each other senseless, Jiminy finds an invitation to a birthday party at the house down the way, or some such nonsense. The birthday party contains a young girl, a man, and three ventriloquist puppets. (Apparently the man is some famous guy…still weird.) Creepiest party ever. Yeah, this movie just wouldn’t make it today.

FUN FACT AGAIN!: The young girl, Luana, also appeared in Disney’s Song of the South (that film which Disney chooses to pretend doesn’t exist)

For whatever reason, the gentleman decides to tell the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.

The story features Mickey, Goofy, and Donald who are starving because a magic singing harp got stolen by a giant (just accept it.) Mickey sells his cow to buy magic beans. Beans grow a beanstalk that magically takes Mickey + friends to the giant’s castle. Whatever. You know the story.

Another fun fact: this film is the last time Walt Disney regularly provided Mickey’s voice. He had become too busy running the studios and cigarettes aren’t doing him any favors. After this film, Jimmy MacDonald took over for the voice acting for Mickey. He would remain Mickey until sometime in the 1970s. It is said by some that both Walt and Jimmy can be heard as Mickey in this film.

AND Another Fun Fact: In the original version of Mickey and the Beanstalk, it was supposed to be Foulfellow and Gideon (the fox and the cat from Pinocchio) who were to trade beans for a cow. (Which makes Jiminy and Cleo make a little bit more sense, but not much) In another version, which was actually storyboarded, Mickey got the beans from Queen Minnie.

Now, what is interesting about this rendition of Jack and the Beanstalk is that Disney Co. felt the need to add in a little twist (aside from changing the ending, which the company tends to do with most, if not all, of its stories). For whatever reason, this particular giant has magical powers. He can change his form into anything. He likes being a pink bunny. He can also shrink himself and fly. OH….AND DISAPPEAR.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the story. They didn’t go anywhere with it. It’s not in the original folktale. In the original, the giant says, “Fee Fi Fo Fum. I smell the blood of an Englishman! Be he live or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!” Apparently, that’s too violent (but bear slapping isn’t?) so instead “Fee Fi Fo Fum” are magic words to make him do whatever he wants. Okay, so, he’s magic. I can accept that, but why does he not use that to his advantage? Why was it added in? Anyone?

This giant also eats chocolate pot roast.

Another thing:

If “Jack” and his friends had to climb up a beanstalk to get to the giant’s castle, how did the giant steal the magic golden harp in the first place? This castle is in the clouds. How can clouds support the weight of a castle and/or a giant? How did the giant get out of the clouds to steal the harp? Oh okay. Magic.

I’m not going to lie, I’m ready to be into the 1950s.
I’m kind of over these package films.

While Fun and Fancy Free is yet another package film, it differentiates itself from the previous films in that Fun & Fancy Free only has two stories. They are wrapped together by an outside narration done by Jiminy Cricket. To introduce the first segment, Jiminy, still a household intruder despite apparently having it made after helping out Pinnocchio, stumbles upon an unhappy looking doll and teddy bear, so he plays them a record that tells the story of Bongo, the circus bear who feels the call of the wild and frees himself.

Unfortunately, the wild isn’t what he thought it would be. Heck, he has trouble riding his unicycle. There’s loud noises at night. Trees are hard to climb. When you can’t climb one, the rest of the animals laugh at you. And catching fish is hard. Life in the woods is hard. And that’s sad when there’s a cute girl bear you’re trying to woo. It’s worse when the biggest, baddest bear in the forest also likes the same girl bear.

Lulubell (Bongo’s beau), is a pretty strong character. When the big bad bear is about to beat Bongo, she steps in between them. And then proceeds to punch Bongo in the face.

You see, that’s how bears flirt: By attacking one another. But because Bongo doesn’t get it, lady bear gives up on him and Bongo unicycles off dejected. Fortunately, a musical interlude from the narrator fills him in. So after a final showdown with the big bad bear, Bongo gives Lulubell a good slap and everything’s happy.

I think this is a movie I’d have to keep away from children. With all their imaginations, I’d hate to have them get it in their mind that they’re a bear and think that the proper way to express affection is through physical violence. I’d much rather my kid be something cool. Like a tiger or a velociraptor.

But I digress.

The second segment is a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk. To introduce it, Jimini, while being a home invader, spies an invitation to a party across the street and decides to crash that as well. So he hops across the street to a party and it’s nothing but a little girl and a creepy old ventriloquist with two dummies. Yeah. I’m raising some eyebrows too, but hey, it was the 40’s and little girls being invited to “parties” with only an older guy around was probably a common occurrence. Yeah. And crickets talk.

Anyway, he tells her a story about “Happy Valley” in which a magic harp made the valley plentiful, until it was stolen. The remaining family in the valley is Donald, Goofy, and Mickey. No explanation on why they’re living together. They’re just there.

But they’re starving, having to divide their last bean. But they have a cow that’s relatively well fed, so Mickey goes off to sell it in exchange for magic beans which takes them to the giant’s castle in the clouds. They get discovered and Donald and Goofy are locked up. Mickey comes to the rescue and springs them all with the help of the harp, which can put the giant to sleep.

Bit behind in getting this posted. But I’ve been busy running Naka Kon and have barely had time to sleep, let alone process movies.

But now I’m all caught up and had some time to digest last week’s film, Saludos Amigos.

Sarah already hit the background: Nazis were courting Latin America and the US wanted to open relations with them, but official channels were seen as too heavy handed, so they sent Disney on a mission of good will.

Even after a first watching and some spot watching for review, I’m still not sure what to say about this one. It’s a series of shorts that concentrate on culture. Not really a strong suit of mine. I’ve got a few friends that are sociologists and they’d probably have all sorts to say, but they’re not here.

As much as this film was “edutainment”, I walked away feeling like I hadn’t learned much. A few names of places and things, but nothing of the culture, lore, or history. Which is disappointing since much of this is nodded to vaguely, noting that the cultures have historical roots tying back to the Incas and they have a very rich history and, like the Mayans, were rather advanced with their astronomy.

Instead, we get Donald visiting Lake Titicaca feeling altitude sickness and then misleading a llama. Goofy becomes a gaucho and ends up flubbing every role there. Later, Donald shows up and mangles dancing Samba (“a two step with a bounce”). These three segments I find interesting because, although the entire film is supposed to be centered on another culture, in each of these instances the star of the show is always the American character despite Disney animators creating new characters for this show and releasing the film in Rio de Janeiro several months before being released in the US.

This seems to be a creeping sort of elitism: Even if they flub all their roles (for purely comedic reasons of course), the American characters are still the only ones worthy of real focus.

The only exception to this is Pedro, the mail plane that travels between Chile and Mendoza which is an entirely new character.

Another new character is Jose Carioca, an anthropomorphic parrot who shows Donald around Brazil. On my first watching of this segment, most of what I remember is Jose speaking to Donald in Portuguese while slapping him on the back and Donald being about as confused as I was. He would then sum up several paragraphs of monologue with a single sentence (“Let’s hit the town!”). Uh, sure. That’s obviously what I got out of that. But I guess Jose makes up for it in the end by buying Donald a drink, although Donald doesn’t seem to be able to hold his liquor. Poor duck.

Oh, and points to this movie for having hipster llamas way before the hipster meme was even hip. That’s totally meta:

Why shouldn’t it be included (in Sarah World)? Most of it isn’t animated. I didn’t bother calculating how much is live action and how much is animated. I’m sure that statistic is out there somewhere. Two Disney films that are both live action and animation that deserve credit over Saludos Amigos: Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. (You know what, Mary Poppins gets a lot of credit. No one knows Bedknobs and Broomsticks – quite frankly, I prefer it to Poppins.) Either way, they’re different beasts than Saludos Amigos. ANYWAY!

You probably haven’t heard of Saludos Amigos. There’s probably a reason for that. (However, at the time, the film was popular enough to warrant a sequel. How bout that.) It’s not a traditional “Disney animated film.” As in, it is edutainment, not entertainment. The live action sequences are documentaries about the cultures of various places in South America – Lake Titicaca (Peru), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). In addition to being mostly live action, it is a package film, meaning there is not one solid plot. It is a bunch of little stories, much like Fantasia, Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, Fun and Fancy Free, and Melody Time.

The film was made as a result of a goodwill tour that Walt and his team took to South America. Why? To stop the South Americans from being allies with Nazi Germany. (America – F yeah!) Mickey and the gang were popular with South Americans, and so the government gave Walt a bunch of money to go down there. Guess it worked.

Donald Duck was also featured in another infamous Disney anti-nazi short, Der Fuehrer’s Face (1943). Yes, Donald is a nazi. Yes, the Disney Company likes to pretend that this short doesn’t exist, but it did, in fact, win an Academy Award. Kind of hard to ignore that. But blah blah blah, end of story: Donald sure is glad to live in the United States! As we’re not talking about Disney shorts here, I’ll leave you to make your own judgement on the thing.

(Disney also likes to pretend that Song of the South doesn’t exist, and yet one of their most popular theme park attractions is based on it. C’mon Disney, just slap a disclaimer before the film and release it already. All you’re doing is encouraging piracy! Sorry – off topic….but still Disney in the 40s!)

In addition to helping out the war effort, it made Americans more culturally aware of South America. Apparently only savages lived there. Little did they know, “it’s like America, but SOUTH!” (sorry, wrong movie.) They eat, they dance, they work. Hooray. According to others, Saludos Amigos was never meant to be a real film, but instead a series of shorts.

This movie has segments featuring Donald and Goofy and introduces Jose Carioca (who we will revisit in the next film). There’s also a plane named Pedro. Meh. The animated shorts themselves are enjoyable enough. They’re in like with the other shorts that the company was producing around this time. The animation, aside from the last sequence – “Aquarela do Brasil”, I think to be forgettable. Unlike the other package films of this era, I don’t really enjoy these shorts.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate edutainment (or South America) – I do. In fact, my favorite Donald short is Donald Duck in Mathemagic Land. (Donald being my favorite character out of the fab five) I adore EPCOT. A LOT of old Disney produced material is Edutainment…lessons in history, math, physics, color, music – anything you could possibly name. It’s just…was I bored? Not exactly, just kind of disconnected. If I was living in the 40s, I would probably appreciate this film more than I do now. The film is, very much, dated.

Overall, I’m feeling rather meh about this film. It has an interesting place in history, but I’d rather skip it and watch its sequel, The Three Caballeros, instead.

A Dream a Week

Watching and reviewing 51 Disney and 12 Pixar films in chronological order once a week.